One area where the Cavaliers really excel -- salary cap management

The Cavaliers on Tuesday turned Jon Leuer, a second-year forward averaging 2.4 points per game and shooting 35.7% from the field, into Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington, Josh Selby and a protected first-round pick from the Memphis Grizzlies.

Granted, they didn't trade Leuer for Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph or Marc Gasol, but the deal was yet another coup for Cavs general manager Chris Grant.

Looking ahead to 2013-14 and the stiff penalties that await teams that exceed the NBA's luxury-tax threshold, we can expect to see more of these moves from Grant.

The league's salary cap for 2012-13 was $58.044 million, the same as the 2011-12 number. The luxury tax was set at $70.307 million, and teams that go over will be forced to pay a $1 tax for each $1 they exceed the threshold.

In 2013-14, teams will have to pay a penalty of $1.50-to-$1 for the first $4.99 million they are over the luxury-tax threshold, which will be set in July. The penalties as the payrolls increase get much crazier as the salaries rise: a $1.75-to-$1 penalty for teams that are between $5 million and $9.99 million over the cap, $2.50-to-$1 for teams that are $10 million to $14.99 million over and $3.25-to-$1 for teams $15 million to $19.99 million over.

Teams that exceed the luxury tax by $20 million or more (hello, 17-24 Los Angeles Lakers) will pay an additional penalty of 50 cents per $1 for every $5 million, resulting in the Los Angeles Timesprojecting Kobe Bryant and Co. could turn a $105 million payroll into $94.5 million in luxury taxes next season.

What does all this have to do with the Cavaliers, you ask?

The Cavs are extremely well-positioned to strike more stiffs-for-future-picks deals, thanks to a salary-cap situation that is among the best in the league.

As teams become more desperate to get under the luxury tax in future years, the first club they might call is the Cavs, who have the coveted combination of an owner who isn't afraid to spend and future payrolls with very few commitments.

If you look at the team-by-team salaries on hoopshype.com, the Cavs have almost $32.6 million committed to seven players for 2013-14 — Anderson Varejao, Kyrie Irving, Speights (whose $4.515 million salary next season surely was the inspiration for Tuesday's trade), Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters, Alonzo Gee and Tyler Zeller.

This summer, Luke Walton and Boobie Gibson come off the books, and so can the disappointing Omri Casspi, assuming the Cavs don't issue the forward a $3,313,480 qualifying offer. The Cavs have a $2.225 million option on C.J. Miles, which we would expect them to exercise, pushing their eight-player commitment close to $35 million.

The other two players they acquired Tuesday are owed a qualifying offer (Ellington, $3,103,732) and a team option (Selby, $884,293) that give the Cavs the flexibility of filling roster spots relatively cheaply or clearing even more cap room.

Then there is this: Assuming they pick up team options on all of the following, the Cavs will owe Irving, Thompson, Waiters, Gee and Zeller a combined $21,896,917 in 2014-15. Varejao has a team option of $9.8 million that season — only $4 million of which is guaranteed.

That leaves the Cavs plenty of room to get a quality player or two in a trade, and it will do nothing to quiet the “LeBron James is going to return” speculation. The Cavs seem willing to add salary in 2013-14 (see Speights), while preferring to retain as much space as possible for a run at a marquee free agent in the summer of 2014 (see The Chosen One).

As I wrote last week, acquiring first-round pick after first-round pick only means anything if you are able to pair Irving with a couple of All-Star caliber players from the draft, free agency and/or trades.

The Cavs are now owed a pair of first-round picks from the Heat (likely to be used in 2013 and '15, both top-10 protected), a first-round choice from the Grizzlies (it most likely will be a choice between 6 and 14 in 2015 or '16, or outside of the top five in 2017 or '18) and a future top pick from the Kings (which seems unlikely, since it's top-13 protected in 2013 and '14, and top-10 protected from 2015-17; after that, it becomes a second-round choice in '17). If the Lakers somehow make the playoffs this season, the Cavs also could swap the Heat's 2013 first-round choice, which will be at the bottom of the round, with the Lakers' pick, which in this dream scenario likely would be in the 15 to 18 range.

More draft picks. More LeBron speculation. Plenty of cap space.

All of which will lead to plenty of intrigue in the future.

For the next year and a half, though, it will be more of the same.

On most nights, bad basketball, and trades that only make sense when you study a salary cap that is almost as confusing as the Manti Te'o hoax.

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